absence makes the heart bleed faster
by puertoricanjane
Summary: "That teacher of yours," says Barret. They've closed up for the night; he's been quietly nursing a whiskey or, at least, had been. "How come you're not with him?"
"That teacher of yours," says Barret. They've closed up for the night; he's been quietly nursing a whiskey or, at least, had been. "How come you're not with him?"

She's wiping the inside of a glass with a cloth. "He left."

"He left," says Barret, voice flat.

"Yeah." Tifa sets the glass on the rack. Starts wiping down another. It's grounding, and it's dumb that she needs that, that her chest and throat are all tight. "It's not what you think," she says, keeping the back to him straight, her shoulders loose. Your body can give you away in a hundred different ways but it's fine. She's fine.

"I haven't said what I think," Barret grumbles.

Tifa almost smiles. "No," she agrees. "But you're angry and it's not. Okay?"

"He abandoned you. How am I misinterpreting that shit?"

She has to swallow around it, the words in someone's mouth, fingers tightening on the outside of the glass. "Left," she says, again. It's important. People leave. That's expected; normal. Abandon was - - callous. Wrong.

"That's—" Barret stops. Sighs. "Okay, left. Point is, you're here and he's wherever the fuck he is, doing whatever the fuck he's doing."

 _Living_ , Tifa thinks; _he's living_ \- - and it's enough, except for when it isn't, but she stows that away, another for the filing cabinet of things she doesn't want to remember but can't seem to forget. "Training, probably," she replies, and doesn't think about the students he's must have had, doesn't, doesn't. She eases her grip, conscious of her strength, not wanting to be stuck picking shards of glass out of her hands, hears the phantom echo of Zangan: _Your hands are your life._

"Damn it, Teef," Barret says.

Tifa sets the glass down, decides she's not drunk enough for this conversation, tops it off. She knocks the whiskey back. Wipes the corner of her mouth. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Barret sighs again, and there's the creak of the bar stool behind her, no doubt from him shifting his weight. "He left you." He doesn't gentle his voice but why should he? It's what she wanted and the truth besides. "Doesn't that - - aren't you angry?"

"No," Tifa says, so full of righteous indignation she's whirling around before she even realizes it. "God, no."

And then she's swallowing painfully, her throat closing up, because Barret's face is right there and there's no hiding now; she can't look away, no matter how much she wants to.

"I'm angry," Tifa says, hoarsely. "I wouldn't have joined a terrorist group if I wasn't angry, okay? I can hardly breathe from it sometimes, that's how angry I am, at, at, Sephiroth and Shinra and the world, but not Zangan. Never Zangan. I wouldn't be who I am without him. I wouldn't be _alive_."

Even when it didn't feel much like living. When she woke from sleep gasping for air and it felt like she could never get enough in her lungs. When the road to recovery was long and arduous and she was so scared she was sick with it, the fear that martial arts was lost, another thing stolen forever, that she was so far from her former self that there was no returning to her at all.

"Tifa," Barret says, gently. "Hey. Teef."

He hooks a hand around her wrist, tugs, slow and loose and easy because he's so much more careful than people give him credit, sometimes. Lets him reel her in until she's bumping into his knees, because he's strong, but Tifa's stronger, and they both know she could break away at any time. She doesn't. She exhales shakily, turning her face into his chest. His arms come up around her; his chin comes to rest on her head.

Her eyes are burning. She doesn't even know _why_.

"He should've stayed," Barret's voice rumbles under her ear; she squeezes her eyes, feels it deep in her chest. "You were just a kid and you needed him. Nothin' more important than that."

"People leave," Tifa says. Even when you love them. Especially when you love them.

"He should've stayed," Barret says.

Tifa swallows but doesn't agree or disagree. Just breathes, in and out. Rubs her face into Barret's shirt, loving the scratch of it against her cheek. His arms tighten and his heart is steady.

He doesn't leave.


End file.
